


so far the suns

by blackkat



Series: Mace Windu prompts [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22146895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: “My old friend,” Qui-Gon tells Mace, quiet, and his presence comes closer. “I fear I made several mistakes in the past weeks, and I would ask you to correct them for me.”
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn & Mace Windu
Series: Mace Windu prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941517
Comments: 23
Kudos: 1005
Collections: Star Wars Alternate Universes





	so far the suns

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Mace training Annikin instead of Obi wan?

They’re halfway to Naboo, and all Mace can feel is the shatterpoint looming. 

It started the moment Anakin Skywalker stepped into the council room, Qui-Gon at his side. Since then it’s gotten larger, stronger, the cracks deeper; Mace so much as turns his head and he can see it, deep, wide cracks like the galaxy is about to fracture completely. Usually, with smaller shatterpoints, with instances of change that will effect planets and peoples and sectors, Mace will catch glimpses of the future in the lines. Usually, there’s some hint as to _what_ the shatterpoint is. 

Usually, Mace has to see the cause before he knows it’s a shatterpoint at all, but apparently this is different. 

His room aboard the ship is too small, too confined. Mace wants to move, to vent a little of the unsettled energy beneath his skin. He doesn’t, though, because he’s the Master of the Order, because he has to show strength. Meditation has proved all but useless, so he sits by the window and stares out into the blur of hyperspace all around them, trying to bleed his disquiet out into the Force. 

It started with Skywalker. It built and built as the boy failed the test, and Mace had thought it would break apart there, fade away. If anything, though, it’s gotten stronger, and he curls his hands in his lap and breathes. 

Qui-Gon is dead. They’re going to have to hold his funeral on Naboo. 

Grief is an old companion. The life of a Jedi is never safe, even when the galaxy is quiet, and Mace has seen more than his share of friends to the pyre. He leads the Order, and that means every death is a personal loss, even when he only knows the Knights or Masters or Padawans at a distance. But this—this is sharper, starker. He grew up with Qui-Gon, knew him, argued and trained and lived with him, and now the gap that’s been left in the world feels like a chasm. 

Breathing out, Mace closes his eyes, reaches. The Force is steady, a weight against his skin, and there’s little kind or caring about it, but—that’s what the Jedi are for. They humanize it. They give it a way to _be_ good. 

It’s what Qui-Gon was best at, of all of them. 

The faint flicker of light is enough to draw his attention, and he opens his eyes, turns his head. Pale blue, silvery at the edges, and Mace pauses. Stares, for a long moment, and then turns his gaze back to the window.

There’s no escaping, though. The ghostly image of Qui-Gon Jinn shines in the darkened transparisteel, too little and too much how he looked in life. 

“Now this is one art I hadn’t thought you studied,” Mace says. 

“I hadn’t,” Qui-Gon says, wry. “But the Force moves me, and I obey.”

That, at least, makes Mace snort. “You? Listen to anything but your own opinions? Impossible.”

Qui-Gon laughs, startled, and the humor on his face is a warm, familiar thing. Mace watches his reflection, not willing to turn, and there’s a kick in his chest that beats in time with his heart, painful and raw. 

“You won’t have to worry about my pathetic lifeforms anymore, at the very least,” Qui-Gon offers, and reaches out like he’s going to lay a hand on Mace’s shoulder. 

Mace raises a brow at him, unimpressed. “Yes, we will. Given that you left the most pathetic and irritating one with your padawan, and I doubt Obi-Wan will give him up easily.”

The shatterpoint around them shivers, desperate, deepening. Mace doesn’t quite flinch, but he looks, and—

A long fall, a dark world, black lightning. He closes his eyes and pushes the image back, refusing to react. 

“My old friend,” Qui-Gon says, quiet, and his presence comes closer. “I fear I made several mistakes in the past weeks, and I would ask you to correct them for me.”

“And I thought death would get me out of cleaning up your messes,” Mace says without heat. He rises, turning to face Qui-Gon directly, and studies the deep lines in his face, the weight that seems to curve his shoulders. Joining the Force hasn’t eased his burdens. Or at least, it hasn’t yet. Mace has very few illusions about why Qui-Gon’s come to him out of all the Masters on the ship. 

Qui-Gon’s smile is wry, but fond. “This, I’m afraid, will be an enduring mess. Tell me, my old friend, have you considered taking another padawan?”

Mace stares at him flatly for a moment. “Might I remind you, Qui-Gon, I was one of the votes to refuse training. Why should my opinion have changed since then?”

“Because a Sith warrior killed me,” Qui-Gon says softly, gently, “and I find myself doubtful that he was the master.”

Mace has been thinking the same thing, has felt the deep, growing uncertainty of those thoughts. He breathes out, remembering Anakin’s face in the council room, pale and scared. Thinking of his mother, always, and the danger she was in as a slave. Old, almost the age Obi-Wan was when Qui-Gon finally took him as a padawan, and Mace had thought—

Well. It doesn’t matter now, Mace assumes. The shatterpoint keeps growing like it’s going to swallow the universe, and Mace can’t even tell where the fractures start. 

“I assume,” Mace says, and it’s only the practice of years spent keeping his emotions under control that lets his voice emerge even, “that one of your mistakes involved Obi-Wan.”

“Several,” Qui-Gon acknowledges tiredly. “Mace, please. I can’t—”

He’s a ghost now. A manifestation of his soul as part of the Force, with enough control to ask Mace for his help but not enough to visit his former padawan. Mace grimaces, looking away again, and says, “The council won’t approve.”

“You _are_ the council, Mace,” Qui-Gon says, exasperated and fond in equal measure. “And truly, if there is anyone in the order who can understand what Anakin is feeling now, it’s you.”

Darkness channeled into light. Dealing with visions of the future. Working past blocks that would stall anyone else forever. Mace sighs, long and slow, and shakes his head. Sees, out fo the corner of his eye, Qui-Gon open his mouth, but holds up a hand. 

“I walk a thin line, Qui-Gon,” he says. “Obi-Wan is steadier. He might—”

“Obi-Wan deserves to be a Knight before he is forced to be a Master,” Qui-Gon says. “I know what I asked him to do, but that was my mistake. Please, Mace, help me correct it. If Anakin truly is the Chosen One—”

“Not everyone believes in that prophecy, Qui-Gon,” Mace says, sharp, but Qui-Gon simply smiles. 

“For the better, perhaps,” he murmurs. “Mace, I would not ask this of you if I did not know it was the will of the Force. Anakin needs a master who can help him through the darkness. Please, take him as your padawan.”

There are a thousand other arguments on the tip of Mace’s tongue, logical and cutting. They die there, though, at the look in Qui-Gon’s eyes, and Mace closes his mouth. 

It’s the Force equivalent of a deathbed request and a mission from a higher power, all at once. And in the face of that, who is Mace to refuse?

“Very well,” he says, and meets Qui-Gon’s eyes. “I’ll miss the problems you cause, Qui-Gon.”

Qui-Gon smiles, bright and warm, and touches Mace’s shoulder. There’s no pressure to it, just a vague sense of power, and Mace closes his eyes at the renewed flare of grief. 

Gentle, light, he feels the pressure of lips against his forehead, like a benediction, and Qui-Gon murmurs, “Soon you’ll have all the problems you can stand, my friend. Thank you.”

By the time Mace opens his eyes, Qui-Gon has vanished. 

The shatterpoint is closing, and Mace settles back against the wall, watching the image of his death grow faint and fade away. Watches, careful, as unfamiliar faces twist past along the closing fractures, and then looks away. 

It’s not the future, not anymore. And beyond that, he has a new padawan to plan for. 


End file.
